Political Quotes

“I rise today to discuss Phil Washington, President Biden's nominee to serve as the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, the top job at the FAA. The FAA has been in the news far too often lately, from the software meltdown of a critical safety system in January that resulted in the first U.S. ground stop of aircraft since September 11 to recent, numerous near-misses of airliners on runways. These incidents are a stark reminder of why it is essential to have an FAA Administrator with decades of deep and real aviation experience, especially experience in aviation safety. After all, the FAA's primary mission is to keep the flying public safe. This mission is so important that Congress has explicitly mandated, by statute, that the FAA Administrator must ``have experience in a field directly related to aviation.'' This is not a patronage job; this is an aviation safety job. And it is, frankly, irresponsible to entrust the role of protecting the lives of millions of Americans who fly in the hands of a person who needs on-the-job training. Unfortunately, that is exactly what we have with President Biden's FAA nominee, Phil Washington. I am deeply disappointed that the Biden White House decided to treat a critical safety position as a political spoil system, to reward a political ally rather than to ensure an experienced safety professional to keep us all safe.…”